Wayne and Jean Nowack rise and shine before the sun does, to watch
dawn. "Wonderful streaks and billows of red" light their
breakfast. Afterward, from 6:00 to 7:30am, he reads aloud to
her while she spins wool. They have done so throughout their 34-year
marriage.

If they are not working together, she caning chairs and he painting
landscapes, they are hiking with their two dogs, visiting museums,
sampling free concerts, shopping for antique records and
books. As they garden, raising all their fruits and
vegetables, they might discuss their morning reading. Deer
come close by them. Most warm evenings they rest on their
backs in the grass, to watch the stars and moon.

The Nowacks have filled their lives with with experiences.
But they have not experienced television. "We've never had
TV, and probably haven't seen 70 shows in our entire lives," says
Jean. "We watched the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, and saw
Laugh-In
at a friends' long ago."

These two Danby residents are among the few hundreds in Tompkins County
who've never seen Miami
Vice, Bill Cosby, 60 Minutes or Murder She
Wrote. The latest Nielsen report finds 98
percent of U.S.
households use at least one TV, seven hours daily. Television
is so important to nearly every American, it is hard for most to
imagine how anyone lives without it, or why. Yet right here
in Ithaca, and from Podunk to Slaterville Springs, we have neighbors
living non-video lives.

Two years ago Janice and Ben Holst made a New Year's resolution of
independence and sold their TV. "It turned our lives around completely;
it was just about the best thing we ever did," recalls
Janice. "We were depressed, I was overweight, and everybody
on TV was having so much fun. We took a look at ourselves and
decided to live instead of watching other people live. It was
the hardest thing I ever did, to face myself after turning TV off, but
within a week we started to feel better. I went to a health
club and lost 30 pounds in two months. We took up
cross-country skiing and bicycling went camping. And instead
of just staring at TV, we started looking at each other and talking in
a really intense way about how we felt about everything. We
started making some goals and putting them into action."

Chris and Susan Peterson and their eight children are also too busy for
televisoin. He is a chef and she is a mother who refuses to
let television babysit her youngsters. They take walks
together, talk together, play checkers, build things, invent things,
make dolls, read, write, hunt bugs and snakes.

For several years they educated their children at home, by
incorporating as a church school. The kids were so excited by
what they learned that an entire room was given to their Clay Kingdom,
where many extra hours of history, biology and social studies lessons
were modeled in detailed clay figures.

Then someone gave them a television. "I have photos of my
kids sitting in chairs, with vacant eyes. They were obsessed
with their favorite program," says Susan. The set finally
broke and they trashed it. Nine years later their three
oldest kids are honors students.

Marta Macbeth grew up glued to television: "I ran my life by TV
Guide." Now she, her husband Jim and two kids enjoy Ithaca's
parks, concerts, sports, dance classes, theater and library.
They draw, fantasize, play games. There's not a whole lot of
time to be bored," she says. "If the kids don't know what to
do, I start them off on
something. Rather than just saying 'go play, go play,' I take
a few minutes. Our lives are really complete without
TV. Our seven-year-old says he doesn't want one."

Cathy Tucker contrasts our television culture with the "rich social
network" of West Africa, where she was a Peace Corps
volunteer. There are no televisions, but every night families
gather around fires for hours of storytelling. Young and old
practice the art. One night, she remembers, a grandmother
danced a sword dance no one had seen for decades. In the
U.S., she says, "TV shows are so violent and people are so used to it
they don't even notice." Her husband Gabe feels TV "robs the
imagination because it doesn't require people to think or imagine," as
books, radio and real life do.

Maria Cowan's kids can listen intently to storytelling by the hour.
They've never seen a TV show or movie. As a former elementary
school teacher, she notes that TV kids have less patience for stories,
needing fast visual action.

Richard Iverson left his television set in New York city when he came
to Ithaca, and discovdeed there's a whole life west of the Hudson River
and lie without television.

So many Ithacans have discarded their televisions, in fact, that the
Grapevine's
invitation to describe life after TV prompted over 50
calls. All offered distinct reasons for their
choice. Here's further
summary of our conversations:

Breaking
the National Hypnosis

"When
I was young we were allowed to watch just two hours a week," says
Leslie Aplan-Wharton. "I hated that, but I'm glad
now." When she and
her carpenter husband Mark gave away their doclor TV three years ago,
they set themselves free of the "brainless stupid shows and depressing
news" they couldn't stand. "Why waste energy turning in car
accidents
in Syracuse?" asks Leslie. "It's better to help a neighbor or
friend."

Joey Cardemon agrees. "It's not as if we're
intellectuals. We're just
living. Without television we have time to interact,
daydream, be
bored, hang around talking by the wood stove. People watch TV
as a way
to avoid each other. We get to know each other." A
teacher of
remedial writing at Ithaca High, she feels that "it's better to stare
out the window or play in the dirt than to watch the most 'educational'
TV show." As a "rabid TV hater," she was thrilled to hear
about the
Society for the Eradication of Television
(SET), which [published] "SET
Free" quarterly.

Even after 16 years without television, Mark
Walker and Tia Rudd still recall TV's appeal. "Some evenings
when
we're tired and don't feel like doing anything, but it's too early to
go to bed, we just want to be entertained, " says Tia. "But
we get up
and do something anyway, like sew or build furniture." Mark
explains,
"If we had a TV we'd watch it a little, then a little more, then a lot."

Most non-video Ithacans in this
article get their news from National Public Radio, the Sunday New York
Tmes, and the local weekly papers. Few take a daily paper,
yet they
feel up-to-date. "People think TV news informs them, but what
the
networks show is so tiny compared to the real issue," says Suzanne
Kates. She lives in a log cabin with her husband Steve
Gaarder and son
Jason. "Nor do I want their products or care to hear about
them."
Jason's friends explain the latest shows to him.

Dana Simmons
agrees that "the few seconds devoted to a TV news item" are
pointless.
"I don't feel I'm missing anything. Other sources are more
interested
in the analysis." He and F. Jill Carboneau enjoy movies
instead,
"particularly here in Ithaca." Dana believes "there are a lot
of good
films on TV, but the enjoyment of a movie is greater when you dress up
and go with friends." Even today, though, he likes to "get
together
with pals, eat chili, drink beer and hoot and holler at the superbowl."

Do
Not Adjust Your Set

Several
non-video Ithacans visit friends to watch occasional VCR
movies. A few
rent a TV and VCR for special events. Lucy Bergstrom's house
still has
a TV, but they cut down to one cassette per week. "Ithaca's
such a
great place to live: there's so much to do without TV." Her
teenage
daughters don't like the tube. "We've improved our home life."

Diane
Gerhart put her set into the closet this January. A bookeeper
at Video
Ithaca, she rents a movie twice mothly, for her son. "He
plays
differently now-- he's calmer, not as revved up." She
displayed a
catalog called The Video Schoolhouse, containing some of the 50,000
educational programs available.

Heather Dunhbar hosts "Salt
Creek," a music show on FM 93. "Radio stimulates fantasy far
more than
television," she says. But real life gets highest ratings:
she goes to
concerts two or three times a week, works for civic groups, and gardens.

Radio
helped Richard and Mary Owen pul the plug eight years ago.
"People
think it's snobbish to get rid of TV," Mary says, "but we just found it
overtook our lives. Even three hours a day of
'good' shows is a loss
of time." They and their son John get out and get active,
taking
advantage of the many free events in our area. Occasionally
they put
on a radiodrama cassettte, turn out the lights and eat popcorn.

When
Ariel Alberg-Martin's teenage son decided he wanted television, she let
him buy his own cable service provided he kept TV in the basement. This
Lansing grandmother values "keeping peacefulness, and honesty," which
TV programs do not supply.

Non-video parents let their children
see television at friends' houses, then talk with them about what they
saw. "The TV images kids receive about sex roles and what
toys they
should want are so wrong," says Erica Weiss, mother of three.

Ted
and Judy Marsh have two youngsters and a home full of eveyrting
fun.
They play games as a family, and the kids play contentedly
alone.
Their son sees video movies at school after school, and Judy says "he
loves 'em." But she's heard him get impatient with his
schoolmates and
say, "You're just always tlaking about TV stuff!"

A
Beautiful World

Walt Vogler speaks for many who expect more of
life: "Think of all the picnics, paintings, friendly visits, hugs and
kisses, songs, letters, piggyback rides, poems, plays, storytellings,
life-savings, crime preventions and adventures that don't happen during
the billions of hours that millions of people watch a few professionals
perform."

There
are no TV dinners at Carla Marceau's home. She loves to cook,
with
food she picks from local farms. Carla feels that youngsters
must look
drectly at the world to know it, while "television only teaches what
television is." Their long checklist of activities includes
the three
most cited by non-video Ithacans: reading, cross-country skiiing, and
music.

Elizabeth Rowe and her husband play guitar, recorder,
Irish harp, and banjo together and with friends. "We get a
lot of
satisfaction making our own fun," she says.

Every night, aftera
candlelit dinner, Kitty Mattes sings or reads her six children to
sleep. One high school son recently thanked her for not
letting TV
into the house.

Margaret and Jonathan Collinson are awakened
every morning by live music provided by their four children.
Students
at the Waldorf School in Danby, where alternatives to television are
emphasized, their kids "never have to be told to practice.
They come
home eager to continue learning whatever they studied in school, " says
Margaret. "TV encourages apathy and laziness, " she
believes. "It's
much harder to play an instrument, but one gets more
self-esteem."
Jonathan doesn't think television helps us face reality. TV
stops
people from meeting each other and solving problems. My kids
learn
that reality is the beautiful world around them."

Tessa Flores
also credits televison with "decreasing our capacity for joy in things
around us." She laments that "violence is portrayed as
heroic," and
that "game shows exploit people's desires for a better life."
And
there is the "timeless news" of deeper realities, unreportable by
TV.
She and her kids and fiancé relish wrestling, tickling, acrobatics,
skating, horseback riding.

"So many beautiful things are
neglected," according to Phyllis Doyle of Groton. "Sometimes
you
wonder if there is a real life anymore-- TV infiltrates
everything."
Since raising three children she has taken TC3 classes in such areas as
piano, voice, yoga, belly dancing, and recreational
leadership. She
skis, works puzzles, cooks, plays chess, reads, listens to
records.
"And I sleep. I enjoy my own company, and I never get
bored. I like
to look outside at pine trees brushed with snow. It feels to
good to
look at things and think."

Valerie Troiano supposes "it's
probably weird not to have television, but my life is so
comfortable."
Like most non-video Ithacans, she doesn't judge those who rely on the
tube. "Everyone has to make their own decision about
TV. But we
should know we have the power to make that decision."